The 54-year-old union boilermaker has made the lengthy trek across state lines from his house in Erie to the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio for the past year.

But before his recent gig, Burkhart woke up at 4 a.m. and drove 92 miles to work at a steel mill in Warren, Ohio.

He endured those long days for about three years, because most jobs in his field have dried up in Erie County.

Burkhart stopped driving his Dodge truck, with 187,000 miles on the odometer, to his job because gas prices were clobbering his wallet. He switched to his wife's Pontiac Sunfire, which recently clicked passed 240,000 miles -- 42,000 of which were clocked in 2012 alone.

"I go wherever the work is," he said. "If you can't find a good wage where you're living, you have no choice but to travel."

Burkhart is far from alone.

Nearly 11 million workers nationwide have commutes of 60 minutes or longer, almost a 10 percent spike from a decade ago, according to a report released earlier this month by the U.S. Census Bureau.

About 600,000 full-time workers have what the census calls "megacommutes," which is traveling at least 90 minutes or 50 miles one-way to work. There is no comparable data on "megacommutes" because that population has never before been measured by the census, officials with the bureau said.

The average one-way daily commute for workers across the country is 25 minutes.

The reasons why people join the ranks of the bleary-eyed, autopilot "megacommuter" masses are twofold.

For some, it's about geography.

Live in a big city like New York or Chicago and you'll see it's common to spend more than an hour in a car or on public transportation commuting one way to work -- and that hour could mean going a relatively short distance on highways choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

For others, especially in the Erie region, long commutes to work are a direct result of an area socked by fleeing industries, a sluggish job market and a down economy.

When Kara Onorato worked in the business office of the Millcreek School District, the Erie resident's one-way daily commute was roughly four minutes.

Budget cuts eliminated her job, she said, and Onorato was laid off for two months. She said she tried to find a decent-paying job closer to home, but couldn't.

Onorato in 2010 was hired by the Conneaut School District in Crawford County to be its business manager. Her one-way daily commute is 52 miles.

"In the car is where I spend most of my life," Onorato said during a phone interview as she drove home from work in her Dodge Journey.

She doesn't mind her morning commute, which allows her to structure her day and mentally plot a things-to-do list. The drive home is often a drag, she said, especially when she's tired, mentally taxed and having to deal with snowy roadways.

"If you have a family, you have to go where the jobs are, where the money is," added Onorato, who has a teenage daughter.

Tina Romba, a parts identification specialist for Steris Corp., carpools with four of her colleagues from the Girard area to the medical equipment company's site in Ohio.

Round trip: 140 miles.

The group meets at about 6:45 a.m. each weekday in a public parking lot on Martin Avenue in Lake City. Carpooling for five people can be a tight squeeze, Romba said, especially for the three in the back seat.

The group takes turns driving their own car each week to save money on gas and wear-and-tear on their vehicles. Steris closed its Millcreek Township operations in 2011 and moved the remainder of the jobs to the Cleveland suburb of Mentor.

"If I had to drive myself I'd probably have to look for another job," said Romba, 39. "I couldn't afford it."

Some "megacommuters," like Jon Burrows, travel to Erie for work.

The Oil City resident is still trying to get used to waking up at 3:30 a.m. and driving 68 miles one way to make his 7 a.m. starting time at GE Transportation in Lawrence Park Township.

Burrows, 32, said he loves his job as an assembler of locomotive parts.

He remembers all too well the flip side of not having a full-time job with a good wage. Burrows worked as a machinist in Oil City and Franklin until he was laid off and went unemployed for two years.

So he tries to entertain himself on his commute to eastern Erie County, which on days of heavy snowfall have reached three hours one-way.

He'll fire up his car stereo, roll the windows up and down, and play tag with roadway rumble strips.

He bought a Chevrolet Cavalier in 2012 that had 60,000 miles on it.

Today, the odometer flashes 126,000 miles.

"It's a long, boring ride," Burrows said of his commute. "But when it comes to supporting your family, you do what you have to do."

Mercyhurst University professor Christine Lo Bue-Estes drives 87 miles -- and about 90 minutes -- from her home in Orchard Park, N.Y., to the Erie school.

But she can't even claim the longest daily commute at the college.

That recognition goes to her colleague, Tim Harvey, a professor in the sports medicine department, who drives 112 miles each way between Mercyhurst and his residence in Lockport, N.Y.

Lo Bue-Estes, a native of Sacramento, said she has friends in California who commute the same amount of minutes as she does, but for a fraction of the distance.

"The traffic there is tremendous," she added. "I'm fortunate my commute, which is (Interstate 90) the whole way, moves pretty well."

Lo Bue-Estes, 36, said she's "happy to drive a little farther" for a job that is exciting and intellectually stimulating.

"I spend three hours a day on my butt in the car, which is contrary to what I'm teaching in class," the director of Mercyhurst's graduate program in exercise science said. "But for this job, and what it means to my quality of life, it's worth it."